First-degree burglary statute covers the common hallway of an occupied residential apartment building.

Hallway by Jack Zalium, licensed under Creative Commons

Ruffin v. U.S., 15-CF-1378 (decided November 21, 2019)

• Holding 1: Proof that appellant pushed complainant at knife-point through the entrance and into the common hallway of her multi-unit row house apartment building was sufficient to establish that he “enter[ed] . . . [a] dwelling” as required for the crime of first-degree burglary, even though appellant did not enter into any apartment before he fled the scene. A “dwelling” includes “any enclosed space used for human habitation,” such as a residential apartment building. Slip Op. at 9. The common hallway at issue, located behind a locked door, was “in no way . . . so open to the public at large as to be considered outside” and was therefore “part of the private dwelling.” Id. at 12.
• Holding 2: The evidence presented was sufficient to establish kidnapping, notwithstanding withstanding appellant’s argument that the only detention of complainant was brief and incidental to the assault and robbery complainant suffered. Id. at 14-15.
• Holding 3: Where the government sent DNA profiles generated by one laboratory (DFS) to be interpreted by a second laboratory (Bode), amid reports of serious flaws in DFS’s interpretation procedures, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing a Bode expert to testify regarding opinions that she derived from the data that DFS generated. The court had no reason to think the DFS data was unreliable given that “the criticisms of DFS pertained only to its statistical interpretation of DNA data,” not the procedures used to generate profiles, and given the Bode expert’s testimony that it was not uncommon for one laboratory to review and analyze data provided by another. Id. at 20.
• Holding 4: The trial court did not err in admitting into evidence a silver and black folding knife that police found in appellant’s jean pocket months after the attack on complainant, given that it fit complainant’s general description of the knife used during the attack. Although complainant never identified appellant’s knife or mentioned its black handle in describing the knife used by her attacker, and although there was a seven-week gap between the attack and when appellant would stipulate that his knife was in his possession, none of these factors was significant enough to deprive the knife of any probative value. Id. at 24-25.

Read the full opinion here.

Relevant portions of this post have been added to Expert Testimony section and Physical Evidence section of The (Early) Year in Review (Part 2), as well as the Elements/Sufficiency of the Evidence section of The (Early) Year in Review (Part 3).

WCC

You can burglarize a coal yard or a lumber yard, but not a construction site.

George Sydnor v. United States (decided January 14, 2016)

Players: Associate Judges Fisher and Easterly, Senior Judge Pryor. Opinion by Judge Fisher. PDS for Mr. Sydnor. Trial Judge: John McCabe.

Facts: Mr. Sydnor entered a fenced-in construction site owned by Nicholson Construction Company and took six steel pipes. He was arrested shortly thereafter, and was charged with and convicted of burglary.

Issue 1: Did Mr. Sydnor's actions constitute burglary, where a person who breaks and enters a "yard where any lumber, coal, or other goods or chattels are deposited and kept for the purpose of trade" with the intent to commit an offense is guilty of burglary? More specifically, was the construction site a place where goods or chattels were kept "for the purpose of trade?"

Holding 1: The construction site was not a place where goods or chattels were kept "for the purpose of trade," and so Mr. Sydnor could not be guilty of burglary for his actions there. The Court, in its de novo analysis of the meaning of that clause of the burglary statute, held that "for the purpose of trade" means goods that will eventually be bought or sold. It rejected the interpretation that the government urged: that any goods used in business -- i.e., a trade -- were covered. Applying the principle of "ejusdem generis," the Court held that by naming lumber and coal, Congress indicated that the "goods or chattels" in such a yard had to be commercial objects, like lumber or coal, that would be bought and sold. In this case, none of the items in the construction site were intended for commercial sale; they were stored there to be used in the construction project. Mr. Sydnor's conviction for burglary therefore must be vacated.

Issue 2: Was Mr. Sydnor nevertheless guilty of unlawful entry?

Holding 2: The court seemed to doubt that unlawful entry was a lesser-included offense under the Blockburger test, but because Mr. Sydnor had requested an unlawful entry instruction at trial the Court found that Mr. Sydnor was precluded from raising that argument on appeal. The Court then analyzed the sufficiency of the evidence that Mr. Sydnor committed unlawful entry and found it sufficient. It remanded the case for the court to enter a judgment of guilty on unlawful entry. SN

Read full opinion here.